TIMES ONLINE: The Duchess of York faces questioning, and possible arrest and extradition to Turkey over allegations that she and her daughter Eugenie broke privacy laws by filming undercover in Turkish institutions for the disabled.
The Turkish government is believed to have lodged an official request for the British police to help it to secure evidence that the Duchess broke the country's strict privacy laws.
The Metropolitan Police and the Home Office are thought to be discussing the request, which arrived through the formal procedure for Mutual Legal Assistance between different countries.
Under the arrangement, British detectives would question the Duchess and relay their findings to their Turkish counterparts, who could then request further action such as her arrest and extradition.
Neither the Home Office nor the Met would comment on the record about Turkey's request this morning. But a Home Office source told The Sun newspaper last night: "We have received a request from the Turkish government for an MLA in relation to the Duchess of York. We are now awaiting the necessary paperwork but it seems likely the request will be granted."
The row concerns an episode of ITV1's Tonight programme, filmed last September and broadcast two months later, in which the Duchess and her younger daughter donned wigs and headscarves to film the cruel and spartan conditions endured by disabled women and children in two state institutions.
Eugenie wept after she saw children left tied to their beds in Istanbul's Zeytinburnu Centre for the Care of Disabled Children, where 700 youngsters are housed. The Duchess reported seeing faeces left uncleared near a bed holding two women at the Saray Rehabilitation Centre in Ankara.
Chris Rogers, an ITN correspondent who accompanied the Duchess, described what they had seen as "profoundly shocking". He reported seeing children "dressed in bedclothes and rags, some had shaven heads - which gave them the appearance of convicts rather than patients. In every corner, a child showed signs of distress, with many exhibiting the awful violent rocking of the institutionalised." >>> Jenny Booth | Wednesday, September 16, 2009
